Mediterranean Quinoa Salad with Feta, Kalamata Olives and Dill

I love wandering through Whole Foods.  I could spend an afternoon wandering the isles looking at everything.  These days, I don't get much of an opportunity to sit and clog the grocery isles...because I am quickly reminded I have a toddler with me as a cheerio whizzes by my head.

But, while my little one does not share my patience for shopping, there is one thing we both have in common--we both love food.  What could be better than that?

I found this quinoa salad while wandering passed the salad bar at Whole Foods and fell in love with it.  It's no secret Whole Foods is often called "Whole Paycheck".  While I truly believe good food is worth every penny, there are ways you can make good things at home and maybe save a few bucks.

My secret?  Trader Joe!  It's my favorite haven for everything organic...and everything on the cheap.  I purchased the olives, feta and quinoa at Trader Joe.  I bought the dill at another local store.  AND no, TJ's didn't pay me to post this (If TJ's is reading this...feel free to contact me to be your local cheerleader)  I just love the store ;).

If you are unsure of what quinoa is, its a grain.  It is VERY easy to cook, basically boil water, pull the pot off the burner, throw your quinoa in and cover for a few minutes.  Its super easy and SUPER good for you!  I love the texture of it too.

This is one of my favorite 'go to' salads to have in my fridge.  I think you will love it too!

Mediterranean Quinoa Salad with Feta, Kalamata Olives and Dill
Recipe by: Cafe Coco

Ingredients:
1 cup quinoa (cooked according to package instructions)
1 cup feta cheese, crumbled
3/4 cup kalamata olives chopped coarsely
1/4 cup fresh dill, finely chopped
Olive oil, drizzled on the top.  My personal fave?  Katz and Co.

Directions:
Cook quinoa according to package instructions, then cool completely.  Add feta cheese, kalamata olives, and dill.  Mix together.  Drizzle olive oil on top.  Serve!

Halibut Sandwich and Toasted Couscous Salad

Over the weekend, I was able to catch up on my favorite food network shows.  Giada's struck me (maybe it was because they were all hanging at the beach and there is no warm weather in sight in MI yet!).  After watching, my husband and I were drooling.  I look over at him, and said "Should we make this today?"  He gets up immediately from his seat and says, "Yes, I will get a pen a paper and write you a list".   That's my husband.  Mr. Helpful.

We made everything from the show, I made the kalamata dip (no pictured) first so we could snack on that while we prepped dinner.  The halibut sandwich (sorry the picture is rather dark!) was SO good.  Toasting the ciabatta bread with olive oil and then rubbing a garlic clove on it was probably my favorite part...and smelled SOO good!  The toasty couscous salad was also a play on flavors.  Every bite was different and unexpected.  I will definitely make it all again.  I wasn't a huge fan of the beer though.  I like dark bitter beer.  This was WAAAAAY too sweet.  I suppose if you enjoyed bourbon, you might enjoy the star anise and cinnamon in the beer.

Check out the recipes, here!

My husband and I are part of a co-op. Pre-baby I kept my own garden, but after last years poor yeild, we made the decusion that it would be best to let the experts handle growing while I focused my new role on motherhood, instead.

So far it's been great. All I have to do is put the baby in the stroller and walk a few blocks to pick up our share. For anyone not able to plant their own garden, for whatever reason, this certainly is a great alternative. Plus, you support your local farmers.

One of our shares had fresh Michigan strawberries. Whenever I have an abudance of strawberries I try to find creative ways to use them. I love putting berries in a salad because it's a great way to get your greens and your fruit, not to mention it gives the salad a sweet kick.

This strawberry poppyseed salad goes great with any summer main course. I think I served steak, but you could certainly serve it with fish or chicken or whatever you would like!!

You could always buy a poppyseed dressing but after reading the labels I figured it would be easier (not to mention cheaper) to just make it myself. Be careful, read the labels. Some claim to be 'all natural'....only to contain high fructose corn syrup. How is that 'natural' again?

Strawberry Poppyseed Salad with Chevre and Candied Pecans

8 oz. leafy greens or butter lettuce

1/2 cup- 1 cup strawberries, cut up

4 oz chevre cheese

1/2 cup candied pecans, for the recipe, click here.

Poppy seed dressing

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1/3 cup canola oil

1/4 teaspoon dry mustard or 1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons poppy seeds

salt/pepper

Directions:

Whisk together vinegar, mustard, and sugar. Slowly drizzle in the oil while whisking. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Add poppy seeds and whisk again. You can also put in a small blender- just add all the ingredients together reserving the poppy seeds for after blending.

Mediterranean Salad with Beef Tenderloin and Couscous Cakes

Last week, I found myself with an entire half of beef tenderloin. For some reason, my husband and I thought an entire tenderloin would barely feed 6. What were we thinking?

So there I was trying to rack my brain of all the recipes I could make with the leftovers to free my conscience of wasting food. I came up with a Mediterranean salad with tenderloin slices and couscous cakes.

I happen to love Mediterranean food, but now that I’m home full time, we don’t go out to dinner much. So I have been teaching myself how to make it at home. Had I known how easy it was….I would have started this a long time ago!

The couscous cakes remind me of a falafel. If you don’t know what that is, it’s like a fried chickpea cake (sorry I don’t know the exact ingredients) but these cakes are crispy on the outside and tender and moist on the inside plus full of great proteins from the chickpeas.

This is such a hearty salad with the feta, olives, cucumber, couscous cakes, and tenderloin that I may find myself eating more of this. It comes together quickly and it’s great for a weeknight meal or for a lazy weekend meal---all on the patio of course!

Tip: If you want to dip your couscous cakes in hummus, check out my homemade recipe here!

Mediterranean Mix Green Salad
1 bag mix greens
1 cup arugula
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
½ English cucumber, chopped
½ cup feta cheese
¼ cup kalamata olives
1 filet sliced

Greek Yogurt Dressing
1 tablespoon Greek yogurt (I used 0% Fage)
½ cup olive oil (I used Chef’s Choice Katz and Co.)
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar (I used Katz and Co.)
2 teaspoons honey
1 tablespoon chopped mint

Kosher salt/freshly ground black pepper

Directions: In a small bowl wisk all the ingredients together until fully combined

Couscous Cakes
¾ cup couscous
¾ cup water
¾ cup canned chickpeas, drained (garbanzo beans)
¼ cup parsley, fresh, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
2 eggs
Zest of 1 lemon

Directions:
In a medium saucepan boil water. Add couscous and stir quickly, then cover and remove from heat. Let sit about 4 minutes and then fluff with a fork.

Meanwhile, in a food processor, add chickpeas, parsley and garlic. Give it a rough chop. You don’t want to puree this you want to have some chunks.

In a large bowl combine couscous, chickpea mixture, eggs and zest. Stir until combined.

With a ¼ measuring cup, pack the couscous mixture inside, and invert it to remove the cake. Set aside and continue with the rest of the mixture. You should get about 8 or 9.

In a medium sized skillet, add a few tablespoons of olive oil on medium high heat. Once pan is HOT, then add your couscous cakes and cook on each side until golden brown (about a couple of minutes).

Remove and set on paper towels.

Healthy Meal Alert: Spinach Granola Salad with Raspberry Yogurt Vinaigrette

Isn’t this salad beautiful? I just love the colors.

What’s more than just the colorful hue of the salad, is the flavor. In the summer months, I really like to pump up the volume on my salad intake. I eat salad year round…but when summer rolls around I typically have a lot more in good quality produce choices.

I actually saw the idea for this salad in Cuisine at Home Magazine. I had never even heard of it until I was staying at my sister’s in Chicago and her husband showed it to me. It’s a fabulous magazine and great for those who are starting out cooking. It has great step by step photos and explains everything….but has fabulous inventive recipes, too! (And no…they aren’t paying me for this free PR)

I made this salad with my homemade granola. I ALWAYS have it in the house because my husband takes it to work to eat with fruit and yogurt daily. If you want the chunks in the granola, just don’t stir the granola when it comes out of the oven. Let it cool, and then you can break up the chunks into desired pieces. I hear laying a cookie sheet on top while it cools works great too, but I’ve had good luck with the former instructions without dirtying another cookie sheet.

What I love about this salad that it’s FULL of good for you ingredients. If you look at a nutrition guide…all of these items will be listed. It’s full of omega 3’s, calcium, anti-oxidants, and folic acid. You won’t even know while eating it….it’s that amazing. Use a good olive oil, the flavor really makes a difference. Don’t fret too much about the fat in the olive oil, it’s got more of the ‘good for you’ fats, plus you need a bit of fat in the food to actually absorb these vitamins anyway.

Enjoy!




Spinach Granola Salad with Raspberry Yogurt Vinaigrette
Recipe derived from: Cuisine at Home Magazine, June 2009

1 bag spinach
½ -2/3 cup granola chunks (see my homemade granola recipe)
½ cup fresh raspberries
½ sliced peach or mango
½ cup shelled edamame, steamed

Raspberry Yogurt Vinaigrette
½ cup olive oil (I used Storm Ranch)
2 tablespoons raspberry vinegar (Alessi makes a decent one that’s easy to find at most grocers)
1 teaspoon non-fat vanilla yogurt (you can use plain if you would like and any ‘fat’ content you wish is up to you)
Freshly ground black pepper and kosher salt to taste

Directions: Assemble the salad ingredients into the bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, raspberry vinegar and yogurt. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the desired amount of dressing on the salad and toss. Serve immediately.

Tip: If you plan on serving this later in the day, just save the dressing until you are about to serve it. The dressing should be stored in the refrigerator, but bring it down to room temp to mix back together.

Avocado and Grapefruit Mache Salad

As I wandered the grocery store over the weekend I was looking for arugula, when I picked up a bag of Mache lettuce by mistake. “Mache,” I said. “Hmm. What the heck is this?” And here I thought I knew about the whole world of lettuce.

Finding something new should be no surprise, because I continue to learn new spices, recipes, and vegetables every day. I used to get intimidated looking at recipes with ingredients I was unsure of, but what I did to overcome that was to just begin wandering the grocery store…looking at everything like it was a shoe store.

Mache, which is also called Lamb’s lettuce, is a very mild, tender lettuce that looks similar to very thick clovers in my opinion. Since Trader Joe was so kind to have a recipe on the back of the bag, I decided, “what the heck, I will try it!” I love salads, and I especially love trying a new one.

So don’t forget to wander the store once in awhile…you never know what you may run into.

Mache Citrus Salad
Recipe courtesy of Trader Joe

Ingredients:
1-6 oz. Bag of Mache Lettuce
1 avocado, sliced
1 grapefruit, peeled and sectioned
½ cup macadamia nuts, toasted

Citrus Vinaigrette:
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, (or just get a juice NOT from concentrate)
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime (please, not from the plastic lime)
1 zest of a lime
½ cup good extra virgin olive oil, I used Round Pond Spanish Olive Oil
Salt/Pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Toast the nuts on a baking sheet at 350 for about 5 minutes. You will know when they are starting to toast because you will smell them. Set aside and let cool completely.
2. Slice up avocado and peel grapefruit. I removed the skin of the grapefruit because I find the skin tough but that’s only my preference.
3. Mix vinaigrette until emulsified (completely combined turning a light yellow) with a whisk.
4. Toss dressing with the salad, then top with grapefruit, avocado, and nuts.

Tip: I served this alongside shrimp scampi which also had citrusy undertones. Very delish! I will post that recipe later this week!